Creative Writing Summer Camp

For years my students' parents have been asking for referrals to summer camps to help the students become better writers or to simply work on creative writing.  I finally had the opportunity to design my own camp.  

Camp description:  Students will discover fun new ways to unleash their creativity through collaborative group storytelling and personal writing.  Campers will use familiar characters in new settings, work on poetry, and use fun prompts to inspire creative writing projects.

Camp was offered to students entering 4th-8th grade.  I ended up with three girls and one boy who attended two of the four mornings.

I discovered an online adventure writing contest, and it turned out that my campers were highly motivated to enter the contest, win $50, and see their writing published online.  They spent the first two full mornings working on their stories for this contest, and one of my campers used the entire week to complete her 1500 word adventure story.

The campers were all entering 5th and 6th graders.  They had their own Gmail accounts through the school, so they wrote their stories on their laptops in Google Docs and shared them with me.  I was able to open their files and talk through editing and revision suggestions with them throughout the writing process.  I am hopeful that the repeated, regular exposure to the proper format of dialogue will carry over into their future writing.  

We spent one morning creating Duck on a Bike stories based on the lesson found on Corbett Harrison's site.  

We took a break and went outside to play on the playground each day mid-way through the three hour writing block.  It was often difficult to pry the writers away from the computers!  They would have written the whole time if allowed.  I offered them food and snacks each day, and they ate a lot more than I would have anticipated!  They talked non-stop.  

A fun aspect to writing with computers is when the writers realized they needed research about their settings.  One writer decided her story would take place near Hollywood, California.  She wondered how close it was to the beach, to the Hollywood sign, and which shopping centers her character would visit.  She also wanted to feature an animal with a disability, so she was able to quickly open a new tab and Google her topics.  We all learned more about animal shelters that exist solely for the purpose of caring for and finding homes for animals with disabilities.